


good partners

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Adrenaline, Bathroom Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fingerfucking, First Time, Future Fic, Hair Washing, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 05:45:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3925099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson washes Skye's hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	good partners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts), [hamsterfactor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterfactor/gifts), [RowboatCop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/gifts), [Persiflage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/gifts), [BrilliantlyHorrid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/gifts), [Hazel75](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazel75/gifts).



"I've never done this," Skye says, letting him hold her arm out.

She doesn't look exactly scared about what's next.

"It's okay," Coulson says. "It doesn't hurt that much. I promise."

"I'm not worried about that."

Coulson wraps his fingers around her shoulder, keeping it still while he grabs the forearm.

"Ready?" he asks.

Skye looks at him with trust.

Fortunately he has done this before. He sets the dislocated shoulder quickly and expertly. The only sign of pain on Skye's face is her closed eyes and her frown. No sound. Just labored breathing after Coulson has finished.

It's not too bad but Skye hasn't been hurt in a long time and it had scared her. Coulson can tell she's still scared and not wanting it to show.

He finds a sling among the medicines and helps Skye into it. She winces when she tries to move her shoulder experimentally and Coulson reminds her that's not how dislocated shoulders work. That she'll have to rest and he'll try to find some ice packs for her later.

She touches her hair. 

There's a lot of blood in it, from when a bad guy got too close and she had to shoot him at point blank. A bad mission, a bad, bad night.

"I need to wash it," she says.

"The hot water is working," Coulson tells her. "I'll secure the perimeter once more. I'll be right back."

"Okay."

Something in her voice is not entirely right.

She disappears into the bathroom and Coulson checks the state of the safe house. It's not the worst they've been in yet, a little isolated concrete cabin, but it's dirtier than Coulson would have wanted. If he wasn't sore from all the fighting and the barely-escaping-alive he'd start cleaning now. Maybe tomorrow, when they both have had some sleep.

He checks outside. The night seems quiet around these parts – not even animal sounds, this is not deep forest. And he knows they weren't followed. They'll be left alone to recharge batteries and go back to work tomorrow.

When he comes back into the house he can hear Skye calling him from the bathroom.

"Coulson... can you come and help me?"

He finds her kneeling on the floor, leaning on the small bathtub, trying to wash her hair. She's taken off her top, standing there in her pants and her bra. Coulson averts his eyes before realizing there's no reason to, they're in the middle of a mission, Coulson has seen his teammates (male and female) naked a hundred times. He relaxes.

"Apparently one can't wash their hair with just one hand. Who knew. Can you do it?"

"Of course. Let me roll up my sleeves."

He takes off his tie too, just in case. He wonders why Skye didn't try the sink until he realizes the tap is too low for it.

He grabs the shampoo bottle she was about to use.

"We should have better stuff than this," he says, looking, all judgemental, at the label.

Skye chuckles. "This is a safehouse, Coulson, not a five-star hotel."

"Still, this is not good for your hair."

"Well, some of us haven't had such sheltered lives as Your Majesty," she says. "I used to live in a van, remember? I washed my hair in public baths. I'm okay with this shampoo."

Coulson nods and makes her crouch over the edge of the bathtub again. He touches his fingers to her neck, pushing her hair away. Her skin is hot. _Too_ hot. She's still nervous from the fight, burning with adrenaline.

And in a moment there he is, kneeling by her side, washing Skye's hair.

He starts soaping her hair, one hand keeping her still, firm between her shoulderblades. 

"Is this okay? Am I hurting your arm?"

Skye shakes her head under his fingers. 

He tries to be delicate and soft above all things.

Things got rough tonight, out there – it's been a while since they had such a close call, Skye's abilities normally offering a cushion of safety in this kind of skirmishes – and he's glad to be able to do something for her. Something simple. 

But this might be too intimate. Not that Coulson minds, intimate with Skye is always nice. They have patched each other up more times than he can remember, they have comforted each other, they have been holed up with each other weathering the storms outside, they have shared warmth and food and hotel beds. Massaging her scap like he's doing now, spreading the shampoo, this is a nicer version of how things normally go. He's normally the one under Skye's hands and there are normally sutures involved.

Yet being in this position reminds Coulson that his life is sorely lacking in _intimate_ , and has been for years now. He doesn't complain, he knows the job they are doing is important, he doesn't have the responsibility of a whole agency now, he has room to maneuver, and having Skye as a partner is very fulfilling. But doing this with her reminds him there used to be a time when Coulson got into showers with girlfriends and washed their hair as foreplay, or afterplay or just for the sake of it. Not because his partner needs him to clean the dried blood of an enemy off her hair. And Skye is a beautiful woman and her skin feels amazing under his touch but that's not why he's doing this. It's the dried enemy's blood after all.

"Coulson?" Skye calls him in a tiny voice.

He realizes his fingers have stopped moving.

"Yes, sorry. I went somewhere else."

"Sorry," she says. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable with this."

"No. It's not that."

He moves his fingers along the back of her neck, caressing her skin to let her know she's done nothing wrong.

"What is it?" she asks.

And well, he is washing her hair, he might as well be honest with her.

He gives her frame a sad smile, knowing she can't see him.

"I was just thinking the last time I washed a woman's hair it was in vastly different circumstances," he says.

There's a beat. Coulson listens to the water run, wondering if he's said the wrong thing, if Skye thinks it's inappropriate.

"Audrey?" she asks.

That surprises him. But she's not wrong.

"Uh-huh."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I'm not bitter or hang up or anything," he says, and that's true. He wouldn't want to get together with Audrey again, even if the opportunity presented itself tomorrow. He's different now, it wouldn't work, he wouldn't want it to. Still. "It just gets lonely sometimes."

"You tell me," Skye says, voice old and sad and Coulson can't bear that.

 

 

&

It's funny because at first it wasn't weird at all. 

Coulson was the one uncomfortable and she was the one who felt there was nothing particular about him washing her hair. It felt natural. He had helped her out of more awkward stuff in the past. She was okay with it, with her friend touching her like that, gentle fingers across her nape and the top of her shoulders.

The tables seem to have turned.

Skye is growing gradually more – not uncomfortable, Coulson could never make her uncomfortable, but more restless about it. He's taking his sweet time. Soaping her hair twice and now he's methodically letting the flow of water clear it out while he runs his fingers through the strands of her hair, pausing to press his pads against the shape of her skull, very tenderly. And yes, it is weird. Skye realizes no one has ever washed her hair before – other than when she was little and the nuns called her "dirty" from playing in the playground all afternoon and they forced her under the shower, if that even counts. Not even lovers have done this for her. Skye hasn't had many of those, anyway, and only a couple she felt close enough to even contemplate letting them do it. She's not good with intimacy.

But that's not the problem here.

She doesn't mind this is intimate, because this is Coulson, so it's fine.

He moves her head to one side, to wash the hair under her left ear. The gesture puts some unwelcome pressure on Skye's left arm, trapped between her body and the rim of the tub.

"Ouch."

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

His fingers seem even more careful after that. They move more slowly. There's something almost hypnotic in the caresses and Skye can't help but press back a bit, wanting to feel more of it, stopping some weird sounds coming from her throat before they make it out. Coulson is good at this. 

"I'm sorry you got hurt," he says softy.

She shrugs under his hands. "It's okay. It's the job."

"It's not a great job," he says. "Not tonight."

Skye feels something on her nape. Something hot. Something it takes her a moment to recognize as a kiss. 

"Coulson... what are you doing?" she asks, shakily, not because she didn't like it but because she _did_.

"I'm sorry, it's just –"

He says sorry but he presses another kiss against her skin.

"Adrenaline?" she offers.

"Yeah."

Skye turns around to look at him.

She feels her skin crawl with adrenaline, itch.

Coulson kills the water and leaves the nozzle on the tub.

Adrenaline is a good excuse. Adrenaline means she doesn't have to think about it.

She kisses him, water dripping between their faces, ruining their clothes. Coulson's mouth falls open in a gasp and soon the front of his shirt is drenched. She kisses him hungrily and messily and thinking _it's just adrenaline_ because that way she can be justified in everything she does. Like biting him and thrashing against him and twisting her fist into his shirt so tight she's almost sure she'll tear the fabric apart. He kisses back just as hard as she and Skye feels almost burn with the heat of his skin, adrenaline pulsing through both of them like a curse. She can feel her whole body _throb_ against him.

They push against each other fiercely for a while, loud open-mouthed kisses and teeth and nails and this feeling there's a bottomless pit under them and they are falling and nothing they do can stop it or have any consequence anymore, until Coulson gets the freaking idea and he finds the buttons of her jeans and slips his hand under her underwear. Skye feels such a relief when the first finger pushes into her and yet it's not enough. She grabs her pants and pushes them down her hips at least, so Coulson – _Coulson_ is doing this to you, she thinks, astonished, you are doing this to Coulson – can have a better access. She stops digging her fingers into his shoulder and drops her hand between her legs, rubbing her clit while Coulson pushes another finger inside her.

God, she hasn't been this close to another human being in so long she thinks she might cry at the continuous, purposeful contact. Coulson's fingers are rough and gentle at the same time and she chokes a moan against his shirt, hiding in the crooks of his body.

"Skye," he _groans_. She can feel his hard-on pressed against her leg. She moves her uninjured arm away from her own arousal and between their bodies, palming him through his pants. His pants are splashed with the water dripping from her hair too and the zipper keeps slipping from between her fingers. Coulson bites her neck out of frustration, urging her with struggling pleads that raises red on her skin. 

She finally wraps her cold, wet hand around his cock and Coulson lets out a string of whimpers when she twists her hands and starts stroking him tight and fast. He's hard and hot and Skye can only think about one thing and Coulson is picking up the rhythm, fucking her with his fingers, and she doesn't – 

She doesn't want to come, not like this. She wants more. She _needs_ more.

"Just – Coulson," she breathes, feeling air like fire as it makes it out of her lungs, words like sandpaper on her tongue. " _Fuck me_."

She can't believe she's said that to Coulson of all people in the fucking world.

Coulson stops moving his fingers, lets them fall out of her.

He looks stunned, like he doesn't recognize her.

"Please," Skye says.

His eyes go even wider at that but he grabs her immediately, pulling her pants and underwear all the way off. He wraps his hand tight around her hipbone, bruising her skin, and pushes her to sit up on the cold tiled floor. He doesn't even waste time – fuck, she _loves_ this guy – taking off his own pants, just pushing his clothes down enough for this to be possible.

Skye thinks he's going to make her turn around but he doesn't, he grabs her by the ass and lifts her until she's settled on his knees and against the tub. He rubs the tip of his cock against her clit and Skye is happy they're such good partners and they both know they don't need protection because she just wants to feel him like this, raw, nothing between them but their own walls and hang ups. She comes as soon as Coulson pushes his whole length into her in one go, but the orgasm doesn't push the adrenaline or the hunger away. It just makes the need sharper than it was. Even after coming, even after Coulson fucks her through her orgasm without pity, Skye feels him so huge and she remembers she hasn't had sex in such a long time. She is pathetic. She wraps her one good arm around his neck and brings their bodies together, the heel of her foot digging into the small of his back, urging him to go faster, harder. When he does her back starts thudding against the edge of the tub and she thinks it's going to hurt like hell tomorrow. She laughs into Coulson's mouth, hysterically, losing it, biting his bottom lip, she laughs because _as if_ – as if there's going to be a tomorrow after this, or as if _everything_ is not going to hurt.

Her dislocated shoulder aches a bit with every thrust too, arm trapped between her breasts and Coulson's chest. But the angle is so good, and she comes a second adrenaline-assisted time, clenching around Coulson so hard he cries out and follows her to the edge himself.

Everything is blurry right afterwards. Her back hurts so much she feels her whole body go numb at the pain and everything smells of shampoo and sex. Coulson can no longer hold her. He falls back, slipping out of her almost painfully. Both of them are panting, spent, sprawled on the cold bathroom floor.

"I need a shower," Skye says, touching the wet hair at the back of his neck, trying not to sound too harsh, but needing the space. "It's okay. I won't need help with that."

 

&

Skye comes out of the bathroom atfer what it seems a painfully long time. She's changed into a bathrobe while Coulson has changed into some dry, _clean_ clothes. He could have used this time to clean a bit but he was waiting for her, wanting to know how bad the damage is.

"Feeling better?" he asks, not sure what the hell of a question is that. Not sure what the hell he's doing. What the hell he's done.

She avoids his gaze – is it any wonder, what was he thinking – and lifts the lapels of her robe, pressing her cheek against the fabric like it gives her some comfort.

She looks like a different person.

Coulson sits on the edge of the couch. "Skye?"

He's terrified.

But Skye sits by his side and suddenly she gives him a soft, friendly look.

"I'm sorry about before," she says, all warm and graceful.

Coulson sits back again, closer to her. He doesn't want apologies.

"You don't have to be sorry about that."

"But I do," she insists. "I needed something tonight, and I knew you would give it to me. You always do."

"Skye," he says, wrapping his hand around her wrist. Her skin is still damp, and he can't stop thinking about how she tastes, what it feels like to be inside her, how he'd walk through hell to feel it again, even though he'd probably go to hell for it too. "Remember, I was the one who kissed you. Right after I admitted I was lonely."

"We're both lonely."

He thinks god, Skye, you're twenty-eight, it's a bit different.

"Is that all it was? Loneliness? Adrenaline?" he asks, trying not to sound defensive. Or worse, resentful at the idea.

Skye swallows and drops her gaze for a moment again. It's not like her to be hesitant about something. She probably is trying to avoid hurting Coulson's feelings. Which means she knows he has them. She lifts her head again, chin brave like always, holding his gaze.

"We've been partners for a long time now," she says. He nods. He was once her boss, her mentor even. He's still her family. They're partners now. Soldier fighting side by side and shoulder to shoulder. "We're good at being partners. I don't know if we would be good at this."

She's right. They are so good together. Even a shitty, bad mission like tonight. A clean escape. Almost no one injured. They are good at this and this is important. It's not something they should throw away because they get horny one night in a dirty safe house.

"Okay," he says, letting go of Skye's wrist.

His fingers come away wet. He is going to have a hard time not being a shitty partner from now on, not spending all those lonely nights remembering this day, her warm wet body curled around him. He's going to have to work on not doing that.

Skye scoots to his side on the couch. She presses her knees against his hips. That's not helping. She lifts her hand and cups Coulson's face between her fingers, turning his head so that he can look at her face when she talks.

"Coulson, you're everything to me," she says.

"Everything except this," Coulson point out, sadly.

Skye shakes her head softly, resting her fingers over his heart.

"No," she says. " _Including_ this. That's what's so scary. Because I wanted it and I want it. I'm getting tingly just thinking about you doing something like that to me again."

Coulson frowns. "Tingly?"

"You know what I mean," she says, rolling her eyes at him. "But I don't want to mess things up."

Coulson thinks about that.

He was wrong. 

She's wrong.

There's no danger of that with them.

"I don't think we can mess this up," he tells Skye.

She raises her eyebrow at his tone of confidence.

"Why?" she asks.

He touches the arm she has in a sling, under the robe.

"Because you're everything to me too."

He moves down the length of the couch and presses their mouths together. Skye's face is still damp from the shower too. He can't stop tasting the stupid shampoo on her but he knows it's an illusion. She's kissing him back, opening her mouth and grabbing the back of his neck. So unlike the kiss in the bathroom. He presses her against the back of the couch and scoops her in his arms, caressing her knees.

"I'd like to try this a bit slower now," he tells her.

"Yeah," she says. Her voice is heavy with desire. The happy kind. Not the desperate, adrenaline-fueled kind. "I'd like that."

He slips one hand under her bathrobe.

"Nice and slow," she says. She sounds unsure, once the adrenaline has started to ebb out of her body. He realizes how long it's been since she's had a lover. All that hunger, all that desperation – now she justs him to be careful. 

Coulson can do that.

"Don't worry," he says, kissing the outline of her thighs. He finds the fading bruises he put there a few minutes ago.

He crawls between her legs, dropping kisses over her stomach and hip as he goes. Skye is not wearing anything under the robe and though he finds her skin gorgeous warm it is no longer burning up.

He feels her stiffen a bit before he presses his mouth against her. Coulson scrapes his nails lightly across the inside of her leg, the back of her knee, tickling her skin to make her relax. She relaxes and he curls his tongue slowly into her.

He eats her out patiently, listening for the sounds she's making, blood gently buzzing in his own head. He doesn't make her come just yet, he just wants to loosen her up, take away the last drops of adrenaline of her body, so that she won't mistake her lust and love for anything else.

Then he stops and Skye makes a tiny, cute sighing sound of disappointment that makes him grin like an idiot. He sits up on his knees – they hurt, and he remembers Skye's weight on them before and he can feel himself growing hard again, already – and helps Skye out of her robe. He spreads it on the couch and makes Skye lie on her stomach.

There are some ugly bruises beginning to get dark across her back, where she hit it against the edge of the bathtub. Coulson touches them, reminding himself to take care of her later, painkillers, ice packs, a warm dinner, to make up for how reckless he's been. Then again he remembers she was reckless too, and there are bruises on his body too and they such perfectly-matched fools.

He puts a cushion under her, so that he won't hurt her arm with her weight.

"Okay?" he asks.

"Fine," she mutters.

Coulson covers her with his body, propped on his knees and arms, trying not to be too heavy. He pushes her hair out of the way and starts kissing the line of her spine upwards, closing his mouth around that sweet spot between her shoulders, then on the back of her neck, nosing the short hair there, breathing in her scent. Skye quirms, pleased, and lets out a sigh of joy.

"It felt so good to kiss you like this, Skye," Coulson says to the back of her neck. "You have no idea. You are so lovely and –"

He feels her laugh under him.

"What?"

"Nothing," she says,laughing softly again. "It's just that it's weird – your _sexy talk_. I never imagined you'd be a talker."

Coulson takes gentle, playful offense at that.

"You're the one who said _fuck me_ back there."

Even remembering her voice when she said it makes his cock twitch. He knows it's wrong, it wasn't a nice thing back there in the bathroom, but he can't help it.

"Yeah, but that was hot," Skye argues.

Coulson presses a smile against her shoulderblade.

"So you don't find it hot, hearing me say how much I want you?" he asks softly. "Well, I don't care if it's not hot, Skye. It's true. I'm crazy about you. You're my partner and you're gorgeous and I can't wait to make you come again."

He drops his hand between her legs, checking she's still wet enough.

"Okay, that last part was a bit hot," she concedes, arching against his touch.

"That's better," he says, smugly.

He shoves his pants and boxers down his waist. He can barely believe it himself, that he's hard enough again so soon. She does make him crazy. He strokes himself a couple of times before slipping effortlesly inside her. Skye breathes in and out against his movements and soon they find a lazy, slow rhytm where neither of them have to move too much and Coulson can concentrate on   
kissing the back of her neck some more. He can feel her around his cock, her heartbeat, her breathing, her just being alive. He nips at her skin, rising red spots then smoothing them with his tongue until they recover their original shade. Skye starts moaning under him. He tells her he's not going to last and she reaches under her so she can be there with him. They come at the same time, joyful little shallow orgasms in perfect synch like the good team they make.

Coulson tries not to collapse on top of her, remembering her arm, so he slips to one side of the couch, only half draped over Skye's body.

She reaches out, blindly, to her side, to touch her hand to his face. Coulson kisses her searching fingers, smelling of both of them.

"Still lonely?" Skye asks.

He grabs her face in his hand, turning her head to meet him, he kisses her quick and gentle.

"Working on it," he replies.


End file.
